


Plus Four

by Redrikki



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Character Study, Dysfunctional Family, Gen, POV Child
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-13
Updated: 2013-06-13
Packaged: 2017-12-14 20:05:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 790
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/840849
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Redrikki/pseuds/Redrikki
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dean is four years older than Sam and, no matter what happens, Sam can never catch up.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Plus Four

Sam is six months old when his mother dies. He won’t remember her. She’s the reason for their everything, but it will take years before he knows anything about her. From his father and a few fading photographs, Sam will learn that she looked like his brother, or maybe he looks like her. Dean is four when she dies and he will hoard his memories of her like treasure. Sometimes though, on nights when the weather is bad and their father is away, he will take them out and share. This is how Sam will find out that his mother smelled like flowers and fabric softener, the kind with the teddy bear. It wont be until he goes away to college that Sam will actually know that smell. Growing up, they will never use that brand.

****

Sam’s first clear memory comes from when he is four. In it, his brother is making dinner while Sam plays with a toy car on the floor of their sleazy hotel room...or crummy apartment, he will never recall which. All their temporary “homes” will sort of blend together after a while, but this one has a stain on the carpet shaped just like the stegosaurus from his coloring book. Dean is eight and, even though he is too short to reach the back burners on the stove, he seems impossibly tall from where Sam sits on the floor. Sam won’t remember what Dean is making or even if it smells good, but he will remember how tired his brother looked when Sam asked him over and over if it was done yet. And how he still managed to smile each time he answered though.

****

When Sam is eight he doesn’t know how to cook, and some days it feels like he doesn’t know anything. He usually likes school and he’s a smart boy –all his teachers say so– but doesn’t really get math. It’s just hard, even after Dean explains it. Dean is twelve, and while none of his teachers have ever told him he is a smart boy, it sometimes seems to Sam that Dean knows everything, or at least everything important. He knows how to clean and use the gun he keeps hidden under his pillow and he knows why it’s there. Dean knows all about salt and Mom and Sam even bets he knows all of Dad’s secrets too. Sam loves his family, but sometimes he resents them and their secrets, like the way he sometimes resents the patient voice Dean uses when he helps Sam with his homework. He’s not a little kid anymore. They can’t keep it from him; not math, not the truth. Someday, Sam promises himself, he will know everything.

****

The year Sam turns twelve, Dean picks him up from school everyday in the Impala and all the girls giggle and sigh. Their father and a vast collection of fake ids have allowed Dean to drive for years, but this is the first time Dad has actually let him take the car to school. Sixteen, it seems, is the magic age because suddenly Dean is an adult. He gets to go on hunts, real hunts, not just boring old salt-and-burns, while Sam is stuck in the car. It’s more than that though. Dad doesn’t just trust Dean with his back on the job, he even seems to trust his judgment in the planning and actually listens to him occasionally, like he would with Bobby or Pastor Jim. Sam still isn’t quite sure how he feels about hunting, but he thinks it would be nice if Dad listened to him.

****

By the time Sam is sixteen he has nearly managed to convince himself he doesn’t care what his father thinks. He wants more out of life than ghosts, crappy hotel rooms and a pat on the head. Sam’s getting out: two more years and he’s going to college. He knows his brother could have gone. Dean’s grades were never as good as Sam’s, but they would have been more than enough to get him into any state school. The problem was, even with a full scholarship, they never could have afforded to let him go. Instead, Dean works at a garage between hunts and cooks their dinner every night smelling like motor oil. After dinner, there is always the inevitable argument over hunting or school or the color of the sky. One night, Sam and his father are standing nose-to-nose, eye-to-eye, and screaming at each other when Dean tries to come between them. The smear of grease across his freckles makes Dean look like a little boy and, as Sam turns to his brother he notices that, for the first time in his life, he’s looking down.


End file.
